The vlogger was ordered to post apologies on his Douyin account for 90 consecutive days and to compensate Nio for financial losses totaling more than 600,000 yuan in a first instance ruling.
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Nio (NYSE: NIO) has won a lawsuit against a vlogger after suing the latter for reputation infringement earlier this year.
Gu Yubo, the owner of the account @Xiaoniushuoche (literally, Xiaoniu talks about cars) on the short-video platform Douyin, lost a first-instance trial and was ordered to apologize to Nio and compensate for the financial losses, the electric vehicle (EV) maker's legal department said in a statement today.
The court ruled that Gu intentionally misrepresented and fabricated information in violation of Nio's right to reputation, requiring him to post apologies on his Douyin account for 90 consecutive days and to compensate Nio for financial losses totaling more than RMB 600,000 yuan ($82,390) within 10 days of the judgment's entry into force, according to the statement.
Nio opened accounts dedicated to its legal department on several Chinese social media platforms on May 8, and on May 15, the account said in its first Weibo statement that Nio had sued Gu.
Since April 6, Gu had posted more than a dozen short videos on his account, using insulting and vulgar language, trolling and attacking Nio and Nio users, according to the May 15 statement.
Nio launched a lawsuit against Gu for the infringement, demanding that he remove the videos, publicly apologize and pay RMB 5 million in damages, the May statement said.
The court ruled that the 11 videos posted by Gu had maliciously violated Nio's right to reputation and had caused damages, according to Nio's statement today.
Based on the play volume of these videos, evidence of the damage caused to Nio, the court ruled that Gu needs to compensate Nio economic losses of more than 600,000 yuan, Nio said, without mentioning the specific amount.
Nio said the company will continue to donate the compensation in the case to support education, elderly care and other public welfare causes.
For behavior that distorts facts and maliciously infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of Nio and its users, Nio will continue to defend its rights and interests through legal means, the company said.
Nio has obtained some of the evidence of other self-media's violation of the law, and the progress of other infringement cases will be released in the near future, the statement said.
It's worth noting that the verdict is a first-instance decision, which Gu may appeal, and that he sued the company for other reasons after being sued by Nio.
On August 4, Gu posted a video stating that he sued Nio because the EV maker refused to deliver the vehicle to him, even though he paid the full purchase price for the new ES6 in July.
Gu paid a RMB 5,000 deposit to order the new ES6 on July 4 and paid the full purchase price of RMB 338,000 on July 12, according to the video he posted.
Nio invoiced him for the purchase on July 14 and told him the vehicle could be delivered on July 15, according to the video he posted. However, upon his arrival at the delivery center, he was told that Nio could not deliver the vehicle to him, according to the video.
Gu said he sued Nio in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, demanding that the EV maker deliver the vehicle, pay compensation of 1 million yuan and publicly apologize to him for at least 10 days.
On August 5, Nio's legal department said in a statement that the company had terminated the car purchase agreement and refused to sell Nio-branded vehicles to Gu in light of his verbal abuse, slander and attacks on Nio and its users.
Nio refunded the entire amount, paying double the vehicle deposit involved within the agreement, on the day of the termination, according to the statement.
($1 = RMB 7.2826)
Nio refuses to deliver vehicle after discovering buyer is man it's suing
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